Songbook: Ian Broudie

Ian Broudie is the force behind The Lightning Seeds (well, he basically isThe Lightning Seeds), and has produced a lot of wonderful music for around three decades. This upload is a bit of an experiment, as it's a video file of a recently aired (in the UK) tv show. If that's not ok for this blog, no problem and we can/will delete it - but I thought it might be cool as material from Broudie is kind of hard to come by. There's the Lightning Seeds catalogue of course, and a few other things he's done (including his one solo record), but those should be attainable via convential sources for the most part. The format of this show is basically an interview mixed with acoustic and/or stripped down versions of songs played by the songwriter. There was another show in the same series that aired recently with Jarvis Cocker which was also awesome. I originally downloaded this from a torrent site that caters to UK tv shows, and the file is just under 400mb, so I had to split it into archive parts. So you'll need something that can reassemble .rar files if you wanna grab this. The first three parts are just under 130mb each, and the fourth part is just under 7mb. Hopefully there's enough interest for one or two people to check this out, but I've never done this wth a larger file (or video file for that matter) so I thought I'd give it a try here. Enjoy!

-Download Links-

Part 1:

http://sharebee.com/8572a6a4

Part 2:

http://sharebee.com/bb60f828

Part 3:

http://sharebee.com/d41ade7f

Part 4:

http://sharebee.com/d8ce6fba

Life On Mars?

GODAWFUL SMALL AFFAIR

Here are some covers of "Life On Mars?" by David Bowie, perhaps his best song and one of the best songs by anyone. This does not include the original, because you should have that already. I thought I had more, but I do not. I could go for remedying that if you want. INCLUDED ARE:

Seu Jorge
Bad Plus
L'aura
Dresden Dolls
Pauline Easy

Patience & Prudence!

A SMILE AND A RIBBON!

They say it's "The Best Of" but it's basically they ever put out. They never did a record, just a collection of singles. There's some rare stuff on here (though I guess it's all rare). It's too bad that they didn't do better -- they were the girls that saved Liberty, after all.

The Plugz

Most folks are familiar with The Plugz (also called Los Plugz) from what was arguably one of the best punk soundtracks ever produced: Repo Man.

On it, they perform El Clavo y La Cruz, a very original melding of ranchero and punk and a Spanish version of Secret Agent Man titled El Hombre Secreto, which I think is better than the original.

The Plugz were one of the original 70s Chicano punk groups and are acknowledged as having started the DIY movement for the Los Angeles punk scene.

They were around for about six years, reforming as Los Cruzados in the early 80s. Musically, the Plugz's lead singer Tito Larriva is the frontman for Tito & Tarantula and Psychotic Aztec. He played Hammy on The Pee-Wee Herman Show and Ramon in Talking Heads' film True Stories. He also has been in just about every Robert Rodriguez film.

1979's "Electrify Me" was The Plugz first full length album, self-released on vinyl under their now defunct independent label Fatima. Restless Records reissued this album on CD in the 90s, but they are now sold out and commanding utterly ridiculous prices (e.g., the cheapest copy available on Amazon is $198.99).

An interesting tidbit on this album is their drummer was only 14 years old when The Plugz were formed and was only 16 years old at the recording of "Electrify Me."
Download Link:
http://sharebee.com/a3aa7501

Kirsty MacColl - Live At Fleadh Festival London, 12 June 1993

This is a (no doubt edited/shortened) collection of songs that was broadcast by BBC Radio of Kirsty MacColl's 1993 performance at the Fleadh Festival in London. It's a short collection of songs, but interesting especially to hear her in a festival performance setting. She was an amazing performer, songwriter and artist, and she died far too soon under tragic circumstances. So if you're a fan of her work, or really just a fan of good music, this should be well worth checking out!

Tracklisting:

01) Free World

02) My Affair

03) Don't Come The Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim

04) Innocence

05) They Don't Know

06) Caroline

07) A New England

08) I Want To Be Sedated

Download Link:

http://sharebee.com/7e05af07

Dee Dee King - Standing In The Spotlight

Dee Dee King was the short-lived alter ego of Ramones bassist/songwriter Dee Dee Ramone. After an embarassing single a couple years earlier, in 1989 (around the same time he officially left the Ramones) he made his full rap debut with this album, Standing In The Spotlight. Although it's not exactly a straight up "rap" album, I have a feeling Dee Dee might have thought it was. He was kind of a nutty guy, but in a lovable way. A few of the songs were actually more like Ramones songs than anything else (in fact, "The Crusher" was later re-recorded for the Ramones final solo album), but most of them are just bizarre. It also features Debbie Harry doing some backing vocals. Certainly not a musical masterpiece, but interesting and entertaining in it's own way. Give it a listen!

Tracklisting:

01) Mashed Potato Time
02) 2 Much 2 Drink
03) Baby Doll
04) Poor Little Rich Girl
05) Commotion In The Ocean
06) German Kid
07) Brooklyn Babe
08) Emergency
09) The Crusher
10) I Want What I Want When I Want It (Oh Yeah!)


dowload link:

http://sharebee.com/790db710

na^5

A lovely remix of the Kaiser Chiefs' "Na Na Na Na Naa" by Polysics. Much more Polysics content than Kaiser Chiefs; it'd be fair to describe this as a Polysics song that just happens to sample some people from England.

In any case, I can't think of many things that aren't improved by removing all the content and replacing it with buzzy noises. This track is an illustration of that principle. Is semi-available on a Japan-only Kaiser Chiefs EP.

http://sharebee.com/659a54e0

Beirut - Black Session

This Beirut performance was recorded/broadcast on November 26, 2007 at Studio 104 and broadcast on Maison de Radio France aka The Black Session. It was broadcast by radio station France Inter. The session features covers of Jacques Brel's 'Le Moribond', Kocani Orkestar's 'Siki Siki Baba' and Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah.'

http://sharebee.com/be3df5d8

Love Is All

Sorry about the flood, we've had a backlog of uploads.


Download "A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night"

Giddy Swedish pop post-punk with sax, a bit like X-Ray Spex. It's their second album, released about 5 months ago.

01 New Beginnings
02 Give It Back
03 Movie Romance*
04 Last Choice
05 Sea Sick
06 Wishing Well*
07 When Giants Fall
08 Rumors
09 Big Bangs, Black Holes, Meteorites*
10 A More Uncertain Future
11 19 Floors*

Zoogz Rift - Nonentity

ZOOGZ

This is my favorite Zoogz Rift record.  They're all pretty cool, though.  If you like this -- which is pretty severely out of print on its own -- you can buy MP3s of all of Zoogz' stuff direct from the man hisself, here at his myspace.  Zoogz is amazing.

Frank Bennett - Five O'Clock Shadow

HERE IS A DOWNLOAD OF AN AUSTRALIAN RECORD

I originally sent this to the Cheeze Factory, but if you don't check out that blog, you may have missed it. Also, you suck, it's an awesome blog.

The post today of "Tuxicity" by Richard Cheese reminded me that I've got this record; it's in a similar vein, but the guy's Australian, and I think he did this before RC started. I don't think this record was ever released in the US, and I think it's out of print in Australia, too, so, hooray! Here's the tracklisting:

1. Better Man
2. The Way You Make Me Feel
3. Poems
4. You're Just Too Hip Baby
5. Red Right Hand
6. Love Is Back To Stay
7. Creep
8. Black Stick
9. Disarm
10. Constant Craving
11. With Or Without You
12. Under the Bridge
13. Love Carefully

Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

My other candidate for Best Album of 2009 (as of its first two months)


preview Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
She's pretentious and... how do I put it? Overwrought? Girly? It's the ethereal fantasy-poetry thing. But she's using my favorite heavenly bodies/optical metaphors. The album has an alter-ego premise based on its duality theme that it's a battle between Natasha Khan's "darker spiritual desert self" and her destructive blonde temptress named "Pearl". This does not, however, detract from the music, which is gorgeously produced and more electronic than Fur and Gold.

1. Glass * (the first few lines grabbed me by the neck and the rest of the song proceeded to throttle me)
2. Sleep Alone
3. Moon and Moon
4. Daniel *
5. Peace of Mind
6. Siren Song * (best use of the duality theme)
7. Pearl’s Dream *
8. Good Love
9. Two Planets
10. Travelling Woman
11. The Big Sleep

*Best tracks

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

It comes out in a few weeks, so buy it, but if you can't stand to wait...


preview Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

01. This Tornado Loves You *
02. The Next Time You Say Forever ("...I'll punch you in your face")
03. People Got A Lotta Nerve (this was already around. Neko albums are such slow growers that I'm only just completely appreciating the first three tracks) *
04. Polar Nettles
05. Vengeance Is Sleeping
06. Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth (meh Sparks cover)
07. Middle Cyclone (some of the best songwriting concentrated here) *
08. Fever *
09. Magpie To The Morning
10. I'm An Animal *
11. Prison Girls
12. Don't Forget Me (Harry Nilsson cover)
13. The Pharaohs
14. Red Tide *
15. Marais La Nuit (this is, as far as I can tell, 30 minutes of crickets)

-limnrix